


Right after the Kiss

by Zeroka24



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:20:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28029933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeroka24/pseuds/Zeroka24
Summary: What happens right after the Ladynoir kiss in the Dark Cupid? How does Marinette find out, and what is Adrien's reaction? Alya plays a big role in bringing up the kiss, she waves the picture of it around everyone's noses, but will she manage to provoke Adrinette to talk about it, and induce some romance between them while she's at it?
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 4
Kudos: 26





	1. Dark Cupid

*** Chapter 1 ***

Today was one of those rare days when Marinette managed to wake up without snoozing her alarm clock, so she got ready for school ahead of time. The latest akuma battle was fierce and quite emotionally charged, but she managed to beat the hate that overtook even her partner, Chat Noir.

Patrolling the city late at night hadn’t been on her schedule yesterday so she finally got a good night’s sleep.

Marinette was well known for always being late and her best friend never believed she could ever actually come to school on time, because of which she has always wanted to prove her wrong and surprise her by waiting for her at the school entrance. So today was the perfect chance.

"Tikki, today might be my lucky day. You know how Alya always brags how she comes exactly 15 minutes early to school every day?"

Marinette said fully awake while packing her bag. She didn't really leave Tikki time to respond, but continued talking.

"I'm going to turn that habit against her, by coming early myself and waiting for her. I bet she will be really surprised."

"Poor girl won't be able to believe her eyes. The earliest I remember you coming to class was 5 seconds before it started."

Marinette felt displeased because she knew that what Tikki said was true, but she couldn't have motivated herself to wake up early even by thinking she would be able to observe Adrien come to class and be in the same room as him for at least a little bit longer. That was one of the cons of being a superhero and patrolling the city late at night. At least for Ladybug.

"Exactly," she knew Tikki was right, so why dwell on it if you can brush it off with a sarcastic comment "can't wait to see the look on her face. Come on, it's time to head out."

She was in no hurry so it took her a whole minute to get to school where she patiently waited by the bottom of the staircase.

A wild realization appeared 'Oh no, what do I do if Adrien comes to school early as well, I'll need to say hello, but I'll make a fool of myself again. He's gonna hate me, I won't be able to look at him ever again...'

Tikki just peeked out to see if Alya is coming as she saw Marinette getting nervous. Of course she knew what was on her mind, it could only be one thing, or rather, one person. 'I have to distract her with something smart' Tikki thought.

"Hey Marinette, don't forget to check on those messages Alya sent you yesterday, there was a ton of them." Tikki said as she flew out of Mari's purse and rested on her shoulder.

Her face muscles just relaxed at the sound of her kwami’s voice. 

'It worked.'

But Marinette was fast to react to this new situation. "Stay hidden, Tikki."

"Oh, don't worry, just check your text messages" Tikki said.

The last few messages haven’t implied Alya was in any kind of trouble so she just discarded all the previously sent ones without reading them when she had first seen more than one hounded message notifications and only two missed calls. 

"Fine." She took her phone and, while scrolling from the newest to the oldest texts, she couldn't really grasp what was happening, there were a lot of short ones and just some random letters. She recognized this as her way of fangirling over Ladybug.

Just when she came to some normal looking text, she heard a familiar voice speak (more like shout) from the distance. It was exactly 7:43, Alya was nearly here.

The voice become clearer, as it's owner was coming closer in a rapid speed.

There she was, running, and waving her hand for Marinette to notice her. Like she wouldn't notice her without all the racket, yelling was quite enough.

'Alya is here right on time, but why is she running, what is she saying anyway?' Marinette asked herself. 'Well I'll find out soon enough.'

She came close enough for her words to be heard clearly, and not just loudly, so Marinette finally understood what she was saying.

"Marinette, why didn't you answer any of my messages, you missed on the news of the century, you haven't even seen any of them."

Marinette gave a weak wave and a cheeky smile, and replied, "Not even a good morning to your best friend, what's the hurry?"

Alya took only a second to recover from her sudden sprint. When she raised her head, she shoot an annoyed look which said 'I don't have time for this, answer my question.'

Marinette pouted but said, "Fine. I was busy, but I saw them" with an innocent look on her face.

"Yeah, you saw them, only one minute ago. You can't fool me." Her face was all red, but it couldn't be only because of those few meters, it had to be something else.

"You can't miss this, look at this, the new update on the Ladyblog. You'll regret not reading my messages and finding out sooner." While talking, Alya took her phone out, and almost slammed it into Marinette's face.

"Ha, look at this picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir. I took it yesterday."

As Alya said that, her eyes glowed with all the pride in the world. Yes, of course it had something to do with Ladybug, it was clear, she was excited about the latest akuma fight.

Shock took over all other emotions that ware resting on Marinette's face, but was soon kicked out by disbelief. "What, when, where did you take this?"

Alya hardly noticed any change on her friend, as she was only one step away from bouncing on her head in excitement.

"This is like the biggest scoop in history of the Ladyblog, or even the world." Alya swung her phone around like crazy, like she couldn't decide if she herself wanted to admire the picture, or let Marinette get a good look at it. Her eyes were wide open, her smile as bright as the Sun; childish happiness and feeling of accomplishment were radiating off of her.

But Marinette didn't even need to take a good look, she recognized what it was at the first glance.

As soon as she saw it, a train of thought hit her: 'Well it happened in the light of day, I expected people to see, but she didn't have to take a photo for everyone to see. Good thing I haven't seen this before, I would never have finished my homework. But I could have stopped her form uploading it. Yeah, like that’s possible...'

"Marinette..." Alya tried to get through to Marinette.

'Well I should just...'

"Marinette, are you deaf?" This time she spoke a bit louder.

And the train went off track. "Oh yeah, yeah."

"Oh yeah, yeah, I see you are. Well anyway. There is an interesting backstory to this picture and I won't let you miss out on it." She was overly confident about her claim and decision, and quite a noticeable smirk appeared on her face. 

"Pfffft, there is probably a good reason why she did it, but are you sure you know what that reason is?" Marinette's response left Alya a bit confused, her response wasn’t what she expected, maybe she misunderstood something.

"What are you talking about? Yeah, I have my ideas about that, but I can't be sure, that's why I'll be persistent to get an interview." Confidence sparked in her, but was soon overthrown by flames of excitement again. "But that's not the point, the super intense backstory isn't about the Ladybug or the deed itself, but about me talking the picture."

Marinette was fast to shot her a confused glance of disbelief "... well I’m sure that’s interesting." But she suddenly realized something. "Wait, wait, you were hit by an arrow? She asked. "And you were mean to me". She said under her breath. “Do you even remember anything?"

"Well that is the interesting part. I don't remember anything. But looks like the reporter side of me is so strong it can't be conquered by hate. I have it all documented on video, on my phone, and it's all on the Ladyblog for you to watch, but I'll tell you in short."

They were distracted by a loud group of students climbing the stairs and entering the school. Thank God, they reminded them that they should head inside as well, so they climbed as Alya began her story.

"So it started when I was going with you to send that love letter to..."

Marinette interrupted her with a sudden "Sshhhh!" They had only a few more steps before arriving at the main entrance, where lots of students were gathered, and they can't allow just anyone to hear that.

Alya just glanced at her with a smirk, to see Mari trying to show her with her hands to just go on with the story, so she continued quickly, "And after that there is a big blank. But the first thing I remember after that is almost cutting the picture of you and me in half.”

"You did what?"

"Yeah, can you believe it. Idk girl, I probably hated you more than Ladybug."

Marinette didn't really know how to feel about this, so she just let her continue talking. 

"But you should feel flattered, the evil me decided to go cut our pic in half rather than go annoy Ladybug or try to follow her to discover her secret identity. Oh the evil me was kinda stupid."

"No, she wasn't. I don't see anything good coming out of you chasing after Ladybug." Marinette realized that what she said could imply that her chasing after LB in general is a bad thing, so she gave her an apologetic look and said quickly: "At least not at that time, you know. She might've had to fight you or hurt you, hehe" Marinette sai. 'Or just run away.' Marinette thought in conclusion. 

Alya made a grumpy face and prepared to say something, but was interrupted by a sudden "Ok, ok, what happens next?" by Marinette.

Alya brushed off her previous comment, and just continued. "Well there is no next, there is only in between."

She led the way through the door and into their classroom. There were 10 more minutes before class starts. Marinette followed close behind, and just after they both settled in their seats, she spoke "Wut." She was confused at first but soon realized that the storyteller doesn't actually remember her story. "No word play, just tell me already, class is gonna start soon," she lowered her voice and continued, "Adrien is gonna arrive soon."

"Sure then. When I came to it, I realized that my confusion must have been the work of an akuma, and that I missed all the action, ugh I was so angry and sad. But soon after I checked the Ladyblog, of course."

"Yeah, yeah hurry it up a bit, what is the interesting part?"

"Ha, look who is excited now. Good storytelling needs patience. So what I saw on the blog shocked me. There were numerous complaints from my fans, and they had every right to it, because apparently I posted bunch of insulting and evil comments and posts." Alya finally started explaining.

"While deleting my evil comments and apologizing to people, I saw a new post with footage on my blog, the one I haven't' seen before. I was so proud of myself that I recorded some Ladybug action and the akuma. But when I watched it, I was highly disappointed.” Alya said and quickly continued.

"Whenever there was something interesting, intense or important happening, the evil me would just turn the camera around and film some random stuff. It was horrible. I hate my evil self."

"Hate is not the answer." Marinette just had to add to Alya’s last comment.

"But this is just pure evil."

"We shouldn't fight hate with hate."

"You think this is the best time to lecture me? However, hear this, we are just coming to the important stuff. Beneath the video, there was that true masterpiece. That picture. The most important picture ever."

The full blown excitement took over her again. Someone would think she could just fly up and break the ceiling with her head, as she was bouncing in her seat with all the excitement in the world.

Marinette was used to her friend’s strange behavior when Ladybug was concerned. 'But isn't this just too much, it's just a picture.' She wondered, and then remembered she'll have to face Chat Noir and talk to him about it as well. And the worst of all Adrien might comment on it. 'Oh no, it's not just a picture anymore, it's a problem. I'll think of something later.' Marinette thought.

"Oh Alya, you are exaggerating."

Alya suddenly raised her voice, and playfully stood in a fighting stance, saying: "You saw it yourself. You can't say I'm wrong."

"Oh sit down." Marinette said pulling her down playfully.

While Alya was bursting with excitement over the picture, two other students came into the classroom.

"Alya, calm down, I heared you all the way to the school entrance." It was Nino, and right behind him was Adrien."

__

Author’s note: Thank you for reading my cringy little story. Chapter two coming in a few days. Also posted on Fanfiction under the name Zeroka

Feel free to tell me what you think ;)


	2. Finding out

*** Chapter 2 ***

'Oh no, it's Adrien. Now Alya will brag about the picture to him, and will want me to join in. I don't want to talk to the love of my life about myself and Chat.' Marinette's thoughts played out in her head in mere seconds.

As he entered the classroom, Adrien didn't even say hello, but just sighted and sat in his seat. Maybe because Mari hid herself behind her bag, and because Alya was busy glaring at Nino, who went straight from the door to Alya's desk, wanting to join in their conversation.

"What's the big deal?" He asked her, but didn’t seem very interested, which annoyed her. She stood up to face him.

"Don't tell me you didn't see it either, ugh, I'm disappointed." She frowned. "But look" she yet again almost slammed the phone into someone's face "at this." Her excitement was back, again, and she almost shouted.

"The super awesome most important picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir, at least for now." She said.

Nino looked at the screen, and slowly pushed Alya's hand away from his face.

"Dude, chill. It’s just a picture of Ladybug and Chat Noir sharing a kiss. There was probably a good reason for it."

'Kiss. Kissing.' His words ringed and echoed in Mari's head.

'Ladybug kissing Chat Noir.' The phrase altered a bit while traveling to Adrien's mind. Hopefully, no one was facing him, so no one saw his dreamy face.

"Don't look to much into it." Nino continued, and without knowing it, snapped Adrien and Mari out of their trances. Adrien activated his model poker face, and Mari tried her best to hide, just to hide.

Nino continued in a lower voice, "Plus, it's probably not the only one we’ll see. Right, Adrien?"

Now everyone was looking at him, his friends at least. That question got him unprepared. (Attack from the back).

'Gotta act cool, you don't need another outburst like the one this morning when you first saw the pic on the Ladyblog.' He reminded himself quickly and turned around to face Nino.

Being a master in hiding emotions and masking his true self, there was no doubt he would menage to hide his excitement, happiness and confusion. Now he just needs to stay calm. Stay calm enough to respond and them maybe ask Alya some coherent and reasonable questions, and maybe sound like he doesn't care too much.

So he finally spoke, "You are probably right, Nino. We can't be sure without asking Ladybug first, and I'm sure Alya will get this info." He said innocently.

He sure hopes she'll get that info. He does remember Ladybug mentioning something about a kiss after defeating Dark Cupid yesterday, but he doesn't remember the sweet deed itself, must be his bad luck. And Plagg didn't tell him anything about it. The Ladybug and Alya were his only recourses for now. So he made a mental note, 'gotta investigate this, a.k.a ask Ladybug during patrol. ' His perfect model face hid his determination.

Slight surprise could be seen on Alya’s face, “Oh, so you are interested too, Adrien?” but was replaced by an annoyed look as she faced Nino and added: “Well of course, who wouldn’t be?”

Even before she finished her sentence, she realized something: ‘Omg, this is the perfect chance to get Adrien and Marinette to talk about some common interests (and some lovey-dovey stuff), I’ll let Ladybug and Chat Noir be their matchmakers.’

She knew Marinette could manage the conversation about Ladybug, she always had all the latest info from the Ladyblog admin herself after all, so it’s possible that she could maybe manage to demonstrate that knowledge and impress Adrien. ‘This is perfect.’ Alya thought. ‘He does seem interested, let’s show him who’s the master in the field.’

“Well kinda, yeah”. Adrien replied to Alya’s question, and added, “I read on your blog that Chat Noir was under some kind of spell, but I don’t know why she kissed him” He started getting nervous but not visibly, “and why it broke the spell.”

Alya couldn’t hide her cheeky grin. She just sat on her seat again and slid next to Mari, who was pretending to be reading something on her phone. The grin became even cheekier, as if she was an evil mastermind.

So she gave a not so gentle elbow nudge to Marinette’s ribs. “Woah!” Mari let out in surprise as her phone fell out of her hands, as she unintentionally pushed her bag forward.

The bag barricade between her and Adrien was no more.

Her bag would have fallen either on Adrien’s head if he hadn’t seen it coming and caught it on time.

‘Oh no, this is terrible, what do I do.’ Marinette thought in panic. ‘He’ll think I tried to kill him by throwing my stuff on him, but it wasn’t even my fault.’

“Owgh haha sorry Adrien, Alya surprised me so my bag fell.” Marinette said nervously and really quickly, while looking sad but with a wide smile on her face.

He put her bag on the desk and said with a gentle smile “No need to worry, here’s your bag.”

Alya was the one who took her bag and placed it next to her so Mary could not put it on her desk again.

Now she had the chance to start a conversation with Mari and Adrien, and exclude Nino. “Adrien, can you believe this, the best friend of the Ladyblog’s admin is actually the last person to see important news like this.”

As she was saying this, Alya was actually looking at Marinette and shook her head in disappointment. But then she looked at Adrien and continued. “We need to show her the true importance of this”, she suddenly slammed her phone into Adrien’s face, with the LB and CN’s kiss pic open and continued, “piece of art.”

Alya’s brilliant plan was to attack Mari so she would have to defend herself, which would, she thought, lead her to find her cool and start talking normally.

Marinette didn’t expected this. She had suspected Alya would try to initiate a conversation with Adrien and her, but not by accusing her. Adrien seemed to be a fan of Ladybug, which was not surprising, and she didn’t want to seem unknowledgeable about a topic he is interested in. So she had to defend herself.

“I told you I was busy. And it’s not all that important. Plus, what kind of Ladyblog admin are you if you can’t think of an idea why she could have kissed him.”

Oh snap, she did not want to talk about kissing Chat Noir in front of Adrien. Defending herself was one thing, but she forgot it had to do with such an embarrassing event.

Her only hope was the school bell and the start of class. ‘Two more minutes to go, I can do this, just keep calm’.

“Do you have any idea why she did that, Marinette?” Adrien gazed at her with glowing curiosity in his eyes. “It’s really peeked my interest now.”

She was lost. Lost in the eyes she admired so much.

All the confidence and cool she had gathered was also lost.

Her heart started to melt, and a dreamy face would have formed on her face if Alya hadn’t poked her subtly, so she somehow found her way to the real world, but still couldn’t completely grasp it.

“Of yourse I know why I… I mean… of course I think ideas. I mean, I have ideas. But how would I know anything, haha.” She said quickly while scratching the back of her head nervously.

After she finished talking, everyone just waited silently, so she was forced to continue. Hence, she started to collect herself.

“Well… my idea is… it is that it was necessary in that moment during the battle. Ladybug had to try to get Chat Noir back from the hate spell to be able to defeat the akuma, so she took her chances with the idea of love conquering hate. She can’t defeat akuma without him, after all.”

The group didn’t even notice a small figure approaching them while Marinette was talking. As soon as she stopped talking, a different, gentle, voice could be heard.

“Hello, Alya, umm…” Everyone turned around to see their classmate Rose who, as she gained their attention, continued in the same tone.

“You are all talking about the Ladynoir kiss, right? I thought I should ask you, but do you think it could have been the true love kiss, to break the spell?” She intertwined her hands, breathed in deeply and said with eyes wide open. “That would be so romantic.”

Rose blinked in surprise, as there was no response. Everyone seemed to be frozen.

“What did I say?” Rose gave a confused look to Alya, who just stood in awe as the air around her froze. She couldn’t let go of what she had just heard.

The ice that started to form in the air around the frozen journalist suddenly cracked as she snapped out of the awe caused by what she just heard.

“Girl, you are a genius.” Alya exclaimed. “Those two ideas are absolutely brilliant”.

“Two ideas?” Rose was still confused.

“The Ladynoir, the ship name, it’s brilliant. Can I use it as the official ship name, on the blog?”

“Um, yeah…” Rose paused. “That’s how Juleka and I always call them, but do you think it could have been…”

“Oh my God.” Alya interrupted her friend in the middle of the sentence. Her whole self was radiating with excitement mixed with happiness, as she bounced in her seat. However, she managed to continue.

“The true love kiss… you are a genius, Rose.”

Her loud voice ringed in Marinette’s ears, how will she deal with this?

Alya left no one any time or space to react or say anything, as she continued speaking.

“Yeah, Chat had the same weird black lips as me when I turned evil, so he must have been under the hate spell as well… that much we know.” The pieces began to come together. “Love conquers hate. The prince kisses the princess to break the spell.”

The thought ‘lol Chat is a princess’ passed trough Alya’s head as she chuckled, but she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted, she was dealing with some importantu businessu here.

"Yes, I accept your reasoning Rose. It must have been the true love's kiss."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: This is my first story. I wrote it back in 2016 after the Dark Cupid episode has just aired, but only now decided to publish it.
> 
> Please tell me if you would like me to continue writing this story :)
> 
> (Story also posted on Fanfiction.net under the name Zeroka)


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